I Got Asked Again The Other Day, Rather Bluntly, Why We Don’t Send The Kids To School

Nothing on this infographic is news to me. My wife and I are peculiarly equipped with first-hand knowledge of the whole enchilada. Either one of us or both of us and one of our children or both of our children have been homeschooled, attended private religiously themed schools, and attended public kindergarten, grammar, and high school. We’ve been dirt poor, poor, middle class, and for about ten minutes about ten years ago, I felt like a swell when I made enough money to stop paying into Social Security for a few months of the year. I wasn’t rich, but I felt that way.

I can assure you in advance that whatever sophism or misunderstanding of statistics you’d like to trot out to refute this chart is nonsense. Don’t give me the academic credentials of the parents business. Every public school teacher has a baccalaureate or better. The academic achievement of public schoolchildren’s parents that don’t teach their children doesn’t matter. I will laugh you out of here with “socialization” horsehockey. Not knowing from whom to buy diverted prescription drugs in third period and which “special needs” teacher puts out is not useful information, and does not make for a potent lifetime social lubricant.

It’s science, biatches. The idea that if public schools had more money they’d be swell is nonsense. If you cut the education budget to zero, and had entirely unqualified teachers (parents) teaching their own children, children would be overwhelmingly better educated than they are right now.  And we’d be able to cut taxes by 400 billion dollars or so. All the good teachers (I know many) should be teaching in private schools and making more money anyway.

Better still — it costs 11 large a year per student to send a child to public school around here. Mail my wife 22 grand every year and see how much better she’ll do. You can keep the iPad toys they squander public money on these days, though. Training for children to push imaginary buttons on a terminal with pictures of food on it is offered free at all McDonald’s restaurants. We’ll buy real computers with the money. We won’t be able to belly up to the “Genius Bar” when they don’t function, standing next to college grads that spell it “genious”, but we’ll try to bear up under the shame of it.

[Updated: Peter at College@Home sent me another visualization of homeschool info they have at their website]

Created by: College At Home